Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [67]
Standing at the low point of the town, looking up the long street that seemed to rise until it simply disappeared into the sky, I felt as though I’d stumbled across an English version of Brigadoon: a storybook village that existed somewhere out of real time. But it was not just the look of the village; even the friendly, sturdy locals out on their morning errands conjured up some primitive image of how life ought to be.
Earlier that morning I had been told by one of the Brasenose “scouts”—the name given to the good-natured women who clean the rooms at Oxford’s colleges—that there were two things I should do in Burford. “You mustn’t miss the church,” my scout said as we chatted at the top of the perilously steep steps leading to my rooms. “Oh, it’s a beauty, dear. And mind you, get a jar or two of the homemade lemon curd. There’s nowhere you’ll get better curd than Burford, I always say. It’s quite lovely.”
Her recommendations suited me. Not only do I, too, think lemon curd—a custardlike combination of lemons, sugar, eggs, and butter—quite lovely, I also think there is nothing better than having as short a list as possible of must-see places when you travel. A two-item list seemed about right. I decided to visit the church first. That, I reasoned, would open the rest of the day for lemon-curd shopping and creative wandering.
The Church of St. John the Baptist was just as my scout described it: a beauty. Left behind by the Normans, the church had changed and grown over the centuries—it was fairly large for a village the size of Burford—but care had been taken to preserve its splendid original architecture. I lingered for quite a while in the cool stone interior. The air inside was redolent with the smell of the damp, fertile earth seeping in from the surrounding countryside; it was like breathing in life itself.
Outside, on my way back to the High Street, I stopped to admire the stalks of purple lavender blooming along the pathway. I smiled, remembering all the handmade sachets Grandmother and I had filled with lavender from her garden. Months later the small, stitched-together squares of blue silk would be given away as Christmas gifts.
I squeezed the blossoms between my fingers, releasing their aromatic scent. Instantly, like a genie let loose from a bottle, Grandmother was there, standing beside me, in her no-nonsense pith helmet. The helmet was a gift from my father, who wore one himself during the summer months. Grandmother wore hers as a sun hat when she worked in the garden.
Suddenly a voice behind me broke into my thoughts: “If you put the crushed lavender under your pillow, you’ll get a fine night’s sleep.”
I turned around and saw the voice belonged to a woman with wavy, reddish-gray hair, lively blue eyes, and fair skin that was papery and lined, like a sheet of parchment. She wore a well-tailored poplin raincoat and carried a smart-looking tan leather purse with a gold clasp. A tweed skirt peeked out from beneath her raincoat. She looked, I thought, as Mrs. Miniver might have looked in her later years. She also struck me as a woman who in her youth might very well have had a rose named in her honor.
“Yes, I’ve been told that about lavender,” I said. “By my grandmother.”
“Well, now, that’s what a grandmother’s for, isn’t it? To pass on stories about lavender and such.”
I was struck by the wry tone of her voice; it conveyed a sharpness that attracted me. Emboldened, I told her the story of the lavender sachets and my thrifty Scottish grandmother. I think I even mentioned the pith helmet. It pleased me that she laughed in all the right places. Then I told her about my mission to purchase some of Burford’s finest lemon curd. For some reason she seemed interested in all this, so I took the next step: I introduced myself. She replied, saying, “And I’m Letty Thompson.”
I liked Letty Thompson from the start. She had a responsive air about her, one that suggested